


Meet the Neighbours

by guineapiggie



Series: In Another Life [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Single Parent, But a mess, F/M, Fluff, Inspired By Tumblr, Jyn is a mess, Like a cute mess, Single Parent Cassian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 02:23:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10323461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: In which Jyn curses a lot in front of a little girl, Cassian locks his keys in his apartment and his daughter sees her father smilebefore noon with no coffee.Also, dating a single father is a lot harder than it looks..Inspired by this beautiful post





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw that post and thought "this might be a nice thing to write a tiny bit before bed" that then got out of hand and then people on tumblr really loved it, so I decided to post it here (even though I swear this is not my best work. I was really tired.)  
> .  
> [here is the post that I blame for this text](https://rogue-stars.tumblr.com/post/158441600938/rebelcaptain-au-single-dad-cassian-in-which)

 

 

1

They say human beings are capable of learning from past mistakes. They assume just because your brain retains the memory you would stop doing what you’re doing and think of a better way to go about it.

When Jyn was five, she burned her hands on the hot stove four times in a row, which should be proof enough that _her_ brain is not, in fact, wired to protect her from repeating past mistakes.

She _knows_ that if she goes to the supermarket without bringing a sturdy bag, she should just buy a goddamn plastic bag. But these things cost unnecessary money, and why would you pay for a plastic bag when you get the plastic bags in the fruit and vegetable aisle for free?

Because if you stuff your entire shopping into these flimsy things, they will inevitably tear and spill the entire content all over the staircase _literal feet away from your front door,_ that’s why.

Jyn never learns from past mistakes.

“Oh, bloody _fucking_ hell,” she hisses as two glass bottles bounce noisily down the stairs, followed by two packs of yoghurt, apples, milk, lemons… “Crap. Stupid _shit_ bag.” She scrambles after her groceries, an imaginative range of profanities spilling from her lips – and nearly collides with a tiny person on the landing.

The girl looks at her with dark, curious eyes for a moment, then crouches down to pick up the apples around her feet.

She extends them to Jyn with a mischievous little smile and says, very softly like someone was listening: “I heard that.”

“I – what?” Jyn says, eloquently, and takes her two apples.

The girl’s eyes shine up at her. “You said bad words. You’re not supposed to.”

“Uh.” Well, _crap,_ Jyn thinks, and commands herself for not saying that out loud as well.

“I won’t tell,” the girl whispers and grins at her.

Jyn blinks at her in confusion, then goes for a tentative: “Thanks?”

She is startled by steps coming up the stairs. A man with a messenger bag, a battered jacket and a rather miserable look on his face comes into her field of view, calling up to the little girl in a foreign language that could be Spanish. Then his eyes come to rest on her and he frowns a little.

Jyn becomes aware of how she’s kneeling on the landing, coat open, hair its usual mess, surrounded by grocery and bottles, awkwardly holding an apple in either hand.

Somehow, she had always known she was not going to make a great first impression on her neighbours, but she imagined something like turning the music up too loud or throwing up on someone’s doormat. Not cussing extensively in front of a pre-school child and then… well, _this._

“Are you hurt?” the man asks slowly, and Jyn realises he thinks she toppled down the stairs along with her groceries.

Before Jyn can say a word, the little girl turns to him – her father, probably; Jyn thinks she heard the term _papá_ somewhere in there and he has the same deep dark eyes – and his frown evens out just a little.

“I’m fine,” she feels compelled to say either way, and gets to her feet. “My shopping bag tore, that’s all, I, um…”

He bends down and hands her a bottle that has rolled all the way across the landing onto a battered brown doormat.

“I’m Jyn,” she says stupidly to fill the awkward silence. “I just moved into a flat upstairs.”

Jyn firmly believes into greeting new people by shaking their hand instead of taking a bottle of Jim Beam from them in front of a little girl, but alas, you can’t have everything.

“Nice to meet you,” he says and it sounds scarily sincere, and she thinks his lying is a whole damn lot smoother than hers. “Cassian.”

He gently nudges his little daughter who throws her another conspiratorial little smile and says: “My name is Verónica.”

“Yeah. Pleased to meet you both,” she replies, stuffing the bottle and the apples into the (thankfully very large) pockets of her coat, “I’m just gonna go and collect my… my groceries now. Bye.”

She scrambles up the other items scattered over the staircase, cradling everything awkwardly in her arms, and hurries up the stairs to the safety of her tiny flat.

_Well, that wasn’t awkward at all._

 

2

The girl sits on the last step, hugging her knees, and is humming to herself softly. This time, her hair is in two neat little braids with bows tied around the ends, and Jyn can’t help but think she looks freaking adorable.

“Hi Verónica,” she says, adjusting the strap of her sports bag on her shoulder.

“Hello,” the girl chirps and throws her a fleeting smile, then goes back to her humming.

“Where’s your mum?” Jyn asks, which she deems an innocent enough question given the fact the girl is sitting in the hallway after eight o’clock – until the little girl replies in a cheerful tone:

“Mamá is with the angels.”

_Well, shit._

“Oh,” she mutters, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. She likes it there,” the girl says. “Only it makes papá sad sometimes.”

Jyn struggles for something to say, and ingeniously comes up with: “Yes. My mum is with them, too.”

The girl smiles. “That’s nice. They can play together.”

“Yeah,” Jyn mutters and shakes her head a little. “Where is your papá?”

She giggles. “He closed the door and now we can’t get in. He is going to Uncle Kay to open the door.”

Jyn takes a moment to process that. “He locked the key inside?”

The girl keeps giggling, like her father’s mistake is the most hilarious thing in the world. Jyn can’t even count the times she locked herself out of her flat already, and she’s only been living in the building for a month and a half, so she can’t quite understand that amount of amusement.

“Aren’t you scared, sitting here alone?” Jyn asks and has no idea why. She shouldn’t be talking to this child, given her track record with kids. The poor thing will probably start crying less than a minute from now, for some reason or other. They always do.

Kids are hard.

She wishes Bodhi was here. He’s great with kids, always was, he always makes them laugh.

“No,” Verónica says with a little shrug. “Why?”

“No reason,” Jyn mutters.

“You can sit here with me if you’re scared,” the girl says sagely and pats the worn concrete beside her, and Jyn is so flabbergasted she actually sits down.

“Why are you out so late?” she asks after a while.

“Papá has to work late sometimes. Then I have time to draw.” She gets a neatly rolled-up sheet of printing paper out of her small backpack and hands it to Jyn.

“Oh. That’s pretty.”

“You’re holding it wrong,” Verónica says, and Jyn blushes a little.

“Oh, right. Yeah, obviously,” she stammers, quickly turning it on its head, but is interrupted by a quiet voice from the landing below.

“Don’t feel bad. I was looking at it upside down, too.”

Her neighbour looks even worse for wear than the last time – a lot of which might have to do with the fact he’s absolutely _drenched_ , dark hair plastered to his head, water dripping into his tired eyes and down his nose. But there are dark circles underneath his eyes that almost look like bruises in the brutal neon light of the hallway, and she’s never seen someone’s smile look so _tired._

It’s still a very nice smile, though.

He triumphantly holds up a key and makes his way up the stairs, reaching for his daughter who squeals and jumps to her feet to save her drawing from the water dripping from his jacket.

He laughs a little and throws her the key. To Jyn’s mild surprise, she catches it and makes her way towards one of the doors – Jyn recognises it as the one where her liquor rolled last time they met.

Still with that worn smile tugging at his lips, he holds out a hand to pull her up.

“You didn’t have to wait here with her,” he says, somewhat hastily, while she lets herself be pulled to her feet, “I was only gone a few minutes. I wouldn’t have left her alone but it was raining and I was just across the street because I couldn’t call my friend who has the key because my phone is in the apartment and –“

“Calm down,” she says, smiling a little, and wonders absent-mindedly why this man trying to reassure her he’s a good father to that little girl makes him _more_ attractive to her.

Oh God. Are those hormones? Is she turning into one of those hormonal mid-twenties women who never shut up about the miracle of life?

She shouldn’t be. Clearly, she’d not be passing on favourable genes as far as things like charisma and social skills go, and anyway she’d be a terrible mother and –

Also, her brain remarks, far too late but with emphasis, that they are standing absurdly close and he doesn’t seem to be bothered by that at all.

“We just got to talking. She showed me a nice picture of… something –“

The girl says something in Spanish, and her father rolls his eyes. “English, Vero,” he chides gently and adds towards her in a conspiratorial murmur that Jyn suddenly realises his daughter gets from him: “She says it’s a dog. I don’t see a dog anywhere in there, though.”

Jyn grins despite herself. “Maybe it’s modern art. You know, the _idea_ of a dog.”

He laughs, shakes his head, and finally makes his way up the stairs, which feels to Jyn like an oddly sudden removal from her space.

“Thank you for waiting,” he says, turning around to her while he unlocks the door, and Jyn thinks people don’t look at strangers the way this man seems to look at strangers. (Well, the way he looks at her.)

“No bother. It’s a very pretty dog,” she adds into Verónica’s direction, who beams down at her and disappears inside.

Cassian clears his throat and says something to her, upon which the girl reappears to wave at Jyn. “Goodbye.”

“Goodnight,” she says, feeling a little smile tug at her lips for some reason.

Her neighbour shakes his head a little, mutters something under his breath, then gives her a little military-like nod.

“Goodnight, Jyn.”

The door has closed behind them before Jyn got over the shock that he remembered her name.

 

3

They say human beings are capable of learning from past mistakes. They assume just because your brain retains the memory you would stop doing what you’re doing and think of a better way to go about it.

When Cassian was six, he had got into a fight with a boy over an insult to his mother four times, gained a black eye each time and, despite being told he should _be the bigger person,_ kept coming back for more.

This should be proof enough that his brain is not, in fact, wired to protect him from repeating past mistakes.

Half a year of running into each other on the staircase has passed. It’s been a distressing six months, because perhaps that doesn’t sound like a very _intense_ kind of encounter, but Cassian begs to differ.

The day something finally, _finally_ happens is the third time in a week Vero is running late for pre-school because he thought forty-five minutes was enough time for them both to get ready. Which it isn’t.

Incidentally, it is also the second time he runs into Jyn outside the door – physically barrels into her this time on the icy pavement, which knocks them both of their feet.

He is cursing, Jyn and Vero both laughing, and for a tiny moment Cassian is tempted to just go back to sleep, then and there. The day is clearly a bust already.

“You’re not supposed to say that, papá,” his daughter chides, looking down on him, and he groans a little.

Jyn is on her feet long before he is, and helps him up.

“You see? I told you. If you raise her too well, it’s going to come back to bite you in the –“ She stops herself in time, which is a rare occurrence. “- you know where.”

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, shaking his head, “I wasn’t… are you okay?”

“Fine,” she says with a little smile. There’s a bit of snow in her hair.

She looks gorgeous.

_Put yourself together._

“Sorry,” he repeats stupidly, “I overslept, we’re late, I didn’t see you there.”

_However I managed to not see you._

Jesus, he’s really not very awake yet.

 “I said I’m fine,” she says, then adds with a mischievous little glint in her green eyes: “You can buy me a coffee sometime to make up for it.”

“I’d like that.”

Oh God, did he really just say that?

“Good.” Her smile widens a little.

“Good.”

“You said you were late for something…?” she asks, still grinning.

“Yes, we are,” he says flatly, shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear it. “Shit.”

“Papá!”

 

“Why are you smiling, papá?” Verónica inquires after they miraculously still got on the right bus, feet dangling from the seat.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” he asks, grinning down at his daughter.

“Because you don’t smile in the morning,” she replies matter-of-factly, and he chuckles a little and runs his fingers through her curls.

“I do sometimes, you know.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to.... but then I was trying to study and oh well.

4

“That was the most embarrassing moment in my entire life,” Bodhi says faintly, and sinks into the chintz chair far deeper than a person as tall as him should be able to. “Oh God. I’m just going to crawl into a hole and die.”

Jyn rolls her eyes. “Jesus Christ, so you took three attempts to order a coffee. The barrista’s cute. It _happens_ , get over yourself.”

“How hard can it be to say _medium cappuccino, please?_ ” He looks at her with big dark eyes that remind her oddly of Verónica and says, firmly: “I’m never going to recover from this.”

Jyn huffs. “You want embarrassing? Try explaining to a five year-old what you’re doing in her father’s bed at two in the morning.”

Bodhi frowns, then grins at her. “What did you say?”

“Nothing! I had no idea what to say, and then she flat out tells me she used to sleep there too because she was afraid of the dark and that her daddy got her a little light and we could buy one for me, too,” she says, still not sure if the event is far enough behind her to laugh about it. “And I was so helpless and I just kind of nodded and –“ She buries her face in her hands, still blushing furiously.

“It was a _nightmare,_ Bodhi!”

Bodhi is laughing so hard at this point he has to set his coffee on the table to prevent it from spilling everywhere.

“What did Cassian say?”

Jyn huffs and rubs her hands over her face like that would do anything to reduce the flush in her cheeks.

“He thought it was hilarious,” she grumbles. “I mean, so would I if I’d slept through all of it, bloody bastard. I swear he enjoyed that story more than you do.”

“I’m not sure that’s actually possible,” Bodhi gasps, grinning widely, and wipes his teary eyes.

 

 

5

“Can you read me a bedtime story?”

“I’m sure your papá can.”

“He’s on the phone and he says it’s important.”

Jyn looks up from her textbook to find Vero, already in pyjamas and hair braided and ready for bed, and wonders how much point there is in explaining to her that she has to sit an exam in two day’s time.

Little to none, she decides, and puts down the textbook with a little sigh. “Okay, but just one. Do you have a book you want me to read?”

“No,” Vero says and settles onto the couch next to Jyn.

 _Awesome._ “Um… you had a fairy tale book somewhere, right?”

“I know all of those.”

“How about the book you got for your birthday?”

“We finished that.”

Jyn frowns. “You had like a hundred pages left a week ago!”

There’s a shrewd little smile on Verónica’s face. “Yeah, but Uncle Kay had to look after me all weekend.”

 _Damn that man,_ Jyn thinks. Cassian’s best friend is a jerk with a steel rod up his arse, but he’s wax in Vero’s hands. He would probably read that whole book to her in one night if she told him to.

Her eyes glance over to the bookshelf – travel books, dictionary, history, a few Spanish books… She doesn’t consider Cassian’s tiny collection of belletrist literature child appropriate, either.

She thinks back to her bookshelf, briefly entertains the thought of reading her bloody _War and Peace_ – at least that would make her sleepy – then sighs and gives up.

“What are you reading?” Vero asks.

“A very boring book. It’s terrible,” she tries, but Vero smiles.

“Can you read from that?”

Jyn sighs. “Okay, fine. I’m gonna tell you something about Amino acids, how does that sound?”

“What’s that?”

Jyn tells herself it doesn’t matter _what_ she reads the girl, so she finds a page with a lot of diagrams and launches herself into an absolutely not child-appropriate lecture about biology.

She never related to the phrase _too tired to care_ more than when she got involved into this family.

At some point, Cassian shows up with a cup of tea in hand. He leans against the doorway and watches them with a little frown.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m giving your daughter a biology lesson,” Jyn says absent-mindedly and only looks up when he spits out his drink.

“You _what?_ She’s five years old!”

“We couldn’t agree on a book and she asked about mine,” she replies with a frown, “so I’m telling her about proteins. I know it’s not _ideal_ , but I wasn’t aware you could be too young to hear about proteins.”

He shakes his head, still coughing and blushing slightly for some reason, and mutters: “Right. Sure. You do that. I’ll go clean this up.”

Jyn and Vero both frown after him, then share a questioning look. The girl shrugs, and Jyn resumes her lecture.

.

When he comes back into the room twenty minutes later, the riveting read has not just put the child to sleep, but Jyn is curled up on the sofa, fast asleep, the heavy textbook threatening to fall off her lap.

Cassian grins, carefully puts away the book, then picks up the girl and carries her to her room. She doesn’t wake once.

He gently closes the door behind himself and shakes his head.

“Proteins,” he mutters to himself, throws one last look at the files piling on the kitchen table, then stretches out on the couch as well he can without waking its second occupant, and falls asleep almost instantly.

_Just five minutes._

 

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Call On Me, Neighbour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10559438) by [randomdreamer01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomdreamer01/pseuds/randomdreamer01)




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